Boxed
by mattmetzger
Summary: Life isn't perfect on the Sophia Ana, and the stress is beginning to show: Spock feels boxed in, and Kirk feels locked out. Sometimes feelings, no matter how illogical, get in the way. Sequel to The Political and the Personal.
1. Chapter 1

**Note: Sequel to The Political and the Personal. Won't make sense without having read the rest of the Keeping Love series. This is also a twoshot (I hope) rather than a oneshot, because the length would make you all lose the will to live. I'll try and be all celebratory and crap by updating on Christmas Day, but it depends how disgustingly drunk I get. Merry Christmas, one and all!**

**Further notes: In part planned anyway, and in part for arcadii and her wonderful generosity, which I will not shut up about until at least New Year.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek and I make no profit from this work.**

* * *

><p>Working in Starfleet, a predominantly Human organisation, had taught Spock a lot of the subtleties between theory and practice in the Human environment – and Starfleet was no exception.<p>

Essentially, there were rules and then there were regulations. On Vulcan, such a difference typically only denoted what the rule or regulation was _about_; on Earth, they were technically the same thing, but practicably not.

A rule was unbreakable. A rule was to be followed by all personnel at all times, and a cold inquiry would be launched at the breaking of any of them. A _regulation_, on the other hand, was more of a strong suggestion – even though, _technically_, it was also to be followed. But the following of regulations was generally left to the discretion of the commanding officer, and each had their own style. With his own staff, Spock generally enforced rules and regulations as the same thing; Kirk, he knew, was more flexible with his people.

It was immediately apparent, however, that the _Sophia Ana _was run with very few rules or regulations in mind.

They had arrived in the middle of the _Ana_'s scheduled shore leave, and had been waved on board by a sleepy transporter ensign with no security checks whatsoever. The Captain was apparently unavailable, and the First Officer from whom Kirk would be taking over had already completed her own transfer to another ship, leaving the ship without command for forty-eight hours. To top this off, there had been no scheduled scan in the medical bay or baggage checks for contaminants, and they had been shown to their quarters by a yeoman with a crumpled uniform and an extremely irritating habit of addressing Kirk by his first name, despite his rank and the fact that they had never met.

"Well," Kirk said, once the yeoman had left them, without a backward glance or a modicum of helpful information, at the door to Kirk's quarters, "that's a good start."

"Indeed."

"Did she even have a name?" Kirk asked as he keyed them in and they stepped into a typical set of bare, empty rooms reserved for senior staff. It was a single suite – they were not married, and as such the _Ana _had no obligation to provide joint quarters – and smaller than those on the _Enterprise _– but there was a viewing window, and Spock stepped across the deck to eye the bulky underbelly of the space station dispassionately. "At least there's a view."

"Currently, an uninteresting one."

"That's pretty insulting, coming from you," Kirk offered him a smile through the partition separating the bed from the main area, and Spock stepped around it to watch him kick his bags into various crannies with ill grace. "It's going to be tough getting used to this again."

"'This'?"

Kirk reached for his hand, curling their fingers together in a messy kiss. "You being however many metres away every night."

"Approximately seven hundred and thirty..."

"Too far," Kirk said, squashing more messy kisses, and the fractured blur of crystalline love and the hooking tugs of amusement, into Spock's palm. "Make a deal with me."

"What are the terms?"

"If you need me, or even just want me around, come and find me," Kirk said quietly. "If being alone is going to do _anything_, come here. Deal?"

Spock curled his fingers further into the dry warmth of Kirk's hand. "If I do not?"

"I will actually _kill _you," Kirk said, and perhaps he was only half-joking. "Deal?"

"...Deal."

"Good. C'mere."

Kirk's kisses were of the soft, idle sort designed to reaffirm, and though he invaded every inch of Spock's personal space and could not have gotten closer without removing their uniforms, there was no real arousal in it. He was relaxed in Spock's hands; his frame shifted without urgency into moving, and without any real interest in _creating _that urgency.

A soft hum of satisfaction beat, like fingers to a half-forgotten rhythm, against the left of Spock's mind, just off from his still-sore telepathic centres – and Spock drew back from the kissing with a sharp inhalation.

"What?" Jim's hands were tight around his upper arms. "What, what is it? Spock?"

"My mind..."

"Do you need a doctor?" and a tension ran up through Kirk's knees and hips into his spine, going from relaxed to a pillar of strength, ready to move them at the slightest word.

"No." The hum dissipated as quickly as it had come, and Spock took another breath. "No. I am well, Jim."

"...Sure?"

"Yes."

"What happened?" his grip was not lessening, and Spock opened his eyes without having realised that he had closed them.

"I believe that...I attempted to reach for you."

"Telepathically?" Kirk guessed, eyes flicking up to Spock's hairline briefly.

"Yes."

He was given a small, uncertain smile. "That's...good, isn't it? That's good."

"It..." Spock hedged. "It is...a sign of improving neurological health, but...it is possible that I could accidentally..."

"Bond us?"

"Yes."

"Well, you said that once before," Kirk said, the smile settling into certainty, and his body settling back against Spock's in a relaxed state. "And I don't think at this stage it...well, _matters_."

It would – to Spock, at least – but he had long since resigned himself to the fact that Humans did not, on the whole, have the ability to grasp telepathy or its consequences. They seemed to believe it to be either sinister, or a game that would stop when it became inconvenient.

"Hey," Kirk ducked his head to peer at Spock's face. "It's _good_. You're getting there. _We're _getting there."

"Indeed," Spock settled on, finally, and Kirk's arms slid about his shoulders again as the man pressed in for another brief kiss.

"C'mon," he murmured at extremely close range. "Let's go check out your quarters, and then find the mess. See if their replicators are as crappy as ours."

The fluttering hum began again, settling into the cracks in Spock's psyche, and he _almost _smiled.

* * *

><p>They had elected to spend the night apart, to begin to adjust, and so Spock found himself eating breakfast alone the next morning in a near-empty mess hall of curiously staring Humans and a lone, ambivalent Thenaxian in a corner, sweeping the rest of the room with suspicious, pale rose eyes.<p>

He became dimly aware, after exactly six minutes, that he was being closely observed, and glanced up in time to see a flushing young woman – perhaps twenty or twenty-one years of age – glance back down at her own tray, some nine metres from his position. Her uniform was that of an ensign, most likely in the engineering department given the colour and her usually small stature, and she was the type of girl that Kirk offered an approving smile: all blonde hair and pale skin and curves slightly alien to Spock.

She made no move to approach, although she kept looking at him periodically, and Spock had just about decided that she must be new to the service and unused to Vulcanoid beings when Kirk put in an appearance.

"Hey," he yawned, setting an indecently large mug of coffee on the table and bumping their knuckles lightly. "Sleep okay?"

"Indeed."

Kirk cocked his head, and followed Spock's gaze, peering over his shoulder at the woman, who flushed an alarming shade of red and hastily scurried away.

"You make a friend?"

"I do not know," Spock said, bemused.

"Eh, she's probably just never seen a combination so sexy as you and me," Kirk drawled, turning back and grinning. "Maybe she has a crush."

"I am sure she does not."

Kirk snorted. "Like I'm going to take your word for it. You're kind of oblivious."

Spock started, and Kirk laughed. "I am not..."

"Sorry, sweetheart, but yes you are. Need I remind you," Kirk's voice dropped, "exactly what I had to do to get the point across?"

The Vulcan memory is extremely sharp, and so Spock needed no reminder – he could almost feel, as he had the first time, the callouses on the palm of Kirk's right hand as it pushed into his underwear, and he fought back the dull flush that threatened.

"Changing the subject," Kirk said around a face-splitting grin. "Coming with me to report in to Captain Johnson?"

"Of course."

"Hey, just checking," Kirk grinned. "I don't know, maybe your new friend told you someplace else to be."

"She did not even speak to me, Jim."

"Oh, definitely a crush then," Kirk's grin threatened to eat the rest of his face. "And hey, who can blame her?"

"You are remarkably amused by the _hypothetical _situation," Spock pointed out.

Kirk snorted. "Er, yeah. Why not? You're mine; it's not like you're going anywhere."

That startled a surprising warmth, and judging by the way Kirk's expression slid from teasing to affectionate, something had shown on his face. He said nothing, however, draining the last of his coffee and rolling his shoulders before rising.

"C'mon, then. Let's go see if this morning's reception is any better."

* * *

><p>Spock's first full day aboard the <em>Sophia Ana <em>passed in a haze of confusion.

Learning the layout of the labs was unduly difficult: they did not conform to the standards set by Starfleet. The content of the labs did not match their official function, nor their capabilities: Spock was disturbed to note, in several occasions, medical experiments being carried out in labs not equipped with quarantine fields or vaccuum pumps.

The staff rota was also a mess. It was unclear who was on which shore leave rotation, and several of the staff listed were in fact medical or engineering personnel and not of any of the science departments. In theory, the labs should have been staffed by at least two hunded and thirteen people, but Spock counted barely fifty at their posts – not enough to qualify even as a skeleton crew.

As if to mimic the staff rota, there was no report – as there should be for a new department head – on the current and upcoming research projects; in fact, there had been nothing prepared for his arrival, and Spock felt the tight band of annoyance in his jaw.

The labs were arranged around a central bay, much like engineering in the larger battleships, and Spock eyed the empty space before crossing to the communications console and opening a channel.

"Commander Spock to communications."

"Lieutenant Guthfrithsson here, sir."

"I want a shipwide message sent to all sciences personnel immediately asking them to report to the science bay, whether they are on duty or not. If they are on this ship, then I want them in the bay at 0930 hours."

There was a sharp pause, before the "yes sir" was almost muttered and the line died. Spock barely waited for it to do so before opening another, direct to the medical bay.

"Sickbay here."

"This is Commander Spock."

"Who?"

The question almost made him pause. The rank alone should have overriden any question, and he wondered exactly how the _Sophia Ana _was run. Not according to military decorum, at any rate.

"I am the new Science Officer," he said finally. "Is the Chief Medical Officer on board?"

"I...yes, but he's not on duty. Can I take a message?"

"When does his shift start?"

"At 1400 hours."

"Then I will speak with him then. Spock out."

"Erm..."

The line cut her off, and Spock carefully did not grimace. He could only imagine what would have been said if one of McCoy's staff had been so casual in communications with other officers. Or, for that matter, what Kirk would have to say about a communications officer being equally lax on the lines.

For fifteen minutes, he compiled a (long) list of what he needed in order to actually do his job, and took note of everything missing from his own files that he would need. Either his predecessor had kept abysmal records, or nobody had thought to provide him with them – and judging from the eighteen hours he had now been aboard, Spock was making some headway in calculating which it was.

At 0945, he strode back into the main bay, and roughly a hundred and fifty people in blues stared back at him. Out of the two hundred and thirteen that were meant to be on rotation. And not one of them reacted to his presence with anything more than idle curiosity.

Spock was heading fast for _irritated_, and was irritated that he felt irritated at all.

"I want everyone below and including the rank of lieutenant to begin clearing out the medical or engineering experiments from labs one through twelve," he said flatly, raising his voice enough to be heard above the hubbub. "All the remaining experiments are to be conducted in the appropriate labs; hydroponics experiments take place in the hydroponics lab and not in the astrophysics lab. Is that clear?"

There was a stunned silence.

"I want a memo from all science staff detailing their current projects, with the appropriate clearance codes and authorisation forms. Any personnel for whom I have not received these by 0900 hours tomorrow will be relocated to other projects. Any projects without the appropriate paperwork will be terminated."

Humans did not like to be lectured, he knew – but most also did not feel comfortable getting into arguments with Vulcans, and his staff, he dimly noted, seemed to fall into this category. Their belligerent expressions were betrayed by their lack of speech or action.

"The commanding officer of each lab is to report to me in my office at 1100 hours with a briefing list of the projects taking place in each lab and the staff working on each project. The staff rota will be finalised by myself by 1800 hours, and is effective immediately. Any crewmember who finds the new rota to be a problem will report to me directly in order to change it."

He had the distinct feeling that none of them would dare.

"I have also noted that ninety-three of you are not conforming to uniform regulations or standards. If these are not rectified by your next shift, I will make note of it in your personnel file."

"Sir."

A young man – Lieutenant-Commander, by his uniform – stepped forward, red-haired and grim-faced. His uniform had been hastily donned, he was in need of a shave, and, peculiarly, he had what appeared to be an extremely large and unsightly _bite _on his neck.

"Sir, Commander Barreis allowed a certain flexibility on uniform regulations provided the work is up to standard."

"I do not," Spock said flatly.

The man looked taken aback, as if he had expected something more. An argument, perhaps. However, Spock had been involved with a communications officer long enough to know exactly how to skirt around righteous indignation. "But..."

"What is your name, Lieutenant-Commander?"

"Alistair Freel, sir."

"Lieutenant-Commander Freel, what my predecessor did and did not permit is irrelevent. I do not permit it. All staff will adhere to the rules and regulations set by Starfleet, and I will make note of any infractions. And any personnel with such infractions will be called upon to explain themselves to the First Officer at the first round of crew evaluations."

Freel blinked. "But sir...it's..."

"May I suggest, Mr. Freel, that if you wish to test my willingness to have the First Officer involved with disciplinary action of a crewmember this early in my contract, you keep arguing with me?"

Freel apparently did not want to test Spock's willingness to report him, for he stepped back and subsided, although the unhealthy glower on his face did not.

"Dismissed," Spock snapped, and turned on his heel to return to his office.

He did not miss the rumble of discontent that followed him.

* * *

><p>Spock spent the entire day reworking – or at least collecting – the paperwork that should have been in order for his arrival. Most of it was incomplete, and what there was had nowhere close to the amount of detail required. At least half of the projects were in the wrong place, or did not have complete authorisation forms, and the risk assessment forms seemed to be an alien concept to every one of the labs.<p>

How someone had not been killed with this amount of neglect was beyond him.

As it was, he worked through lunch and an hour and a half beyond his shift officially ending before the doors to his office opened and Kirk marched in, stopping in a completely solid stance in front of his desk, feet planted firmly on the deck and arms folded over his chest.

"Can I help you, Commander?"

Kirk's eyebrows flew up towards his hair. "It's 1830 hours."

"It is."

"And you're still on shift. There is no alert or any other form of emergency declared; you have not been ordered to cover another officer's shift, and you have not been granted permission to extend your hours to cover an experiment by either the Captain or the First Officer. Therefore, _Commander_, I am escorting you from your own office before you get any other bright ideas about working nights."

"An extra hour and a half does not jeopardise my health or my ability to..."

"Now, I bet if I went down to the medical bay and asked to see your mealcard records, I'd find it shockingly unused since this morning. And you can bet the medical staff would have something to say about that with your weight already as low as it is, _and _your medical proviso."

Spock raised an eyebrow, and Kirk set his jaw and _glowered_.

"_Out_," he said flatly.

"Very well," Spock capitulated, and Kirk unfolded, the easy smile returning to his face as he effortlessly dropped his command persona.

"You needing to do as much reorganisation as me?"

"Probably."

"_Yeah_," Kirk sighed. "I have stress kinks in my neck."

"If you would not insist upon looking at instruments over people's shoulders, then you would not."

"Smartass," Kirk grumbled as they left Spock's office, blithely ignoring the surprised glances from the (still-arriving, and late) beta shift. "There's a plus side. At least two of the senior command staff aren't fuckwits."

"Jim."

"I can say it if it's true," Kirk snorted. "Engineering runs like a dream, even on skeleton crew. Medical's a bit of a mix, but at least their paperwork is up to date. Communications is an absolute _nightmare _– monsters under the bed screaming jeebies kind of nightmare – and I'm guessing you know what I'm about to say about Sciences."

"Indeed," Spock said dryly.

"And _then_," Kirk said as they hit the turbolift, "there's the grapevine. They're bad enough with two thirds of the crew on leave. You know, I got five people ask me if it's true we're..." he made a vague hand gesture, and Spock felt a shard of amusement crawl up his neck. "Five!"

"Is that unusual?"

"Unusual is when someone grows a pair big enough to ask _you_," Kirk griped, ignoring the scandalised look of a nurse as the doors opened into the mess hall in time for her to hear his final words. "One guy even had the balls to ask if we had, and I'm quoting here, 'freaky mind sex.' I don't even know what that _is_."

"What was your response?"

"Considering he was on duty at the time, I had him on report for inappropriate language, cultural insensitivity, _and _disrespect of a superior officer. Probably didn't help the rumour mill, but he'll only be done scrubbing potatoes by the last year of his contract, so I don't care."

Kirk spoke with his usual skill – a flow of words that wrapped around his actions and motions as though he was not even listening to himself. He ordered both of their trays, stepped around a hurrying ensign, and had them seated and eating before breaking the flow of _speech _in the slightest, and Spock soaked up the verbal blanket like a sponge.

He did not have to ask of Kirk's decision regarding public knowledge of their involvement, as Kirk's hand settled beside his on the table so that their knuckles barely brushed, and the question subsided.

"Anyway, I'm assuming you're beating your department back into shape without need for me, so I'm probably going to have to spend the entirety of tomorrow actually working out whatever passes for a rota in communications. They can speak forty-nine languages between them, but can they work out how to use the rota forms? Like hell," Kirk muttered. "Oh – I met your admirer as well."

"My...?"

"The ensign from breakfast. Ensign Goodman. Definitely you she's after – didn't get all fluttery with _me_, anyway," Kirk rolled his eyes. "Some women just have no eyes."

Spock arched an eyebrow, and Kirk snickered. "On the contrary, perhaps she has more refined tastes than those to which you are accustomed."

"_Low_," Kirk mocked. "That was _low_." A thumb rose to stroke over Spock's fingers, and the warm buzz of lust lined up with the smirk on Kirk's face. "I don't mock _your _heritage."

"Yes, Jim, you do."

"Okay, yeah, I do, but not like _that_," Kirk actually pouted, and Spock withdrew his hand in silent boycott of the frankly ridiculous expression. Starfleet officers did not _pout_. "Okay, okay, I give. For now."

Judging by the remaining smirk, Spock had a fair idea of Kirk's ideas of disagreement resolution.

* * *

><p>He was correct.<p>

The moment that the doors of Kirk's cabin slid closed behind them, the man's hands were up under Spock's tunic, rubbing heat and lust into his skin, and his mouth was right there, licking plundering kisses into Spock's mouth and stealing his ability to breathe. The lust was crowding, almost dizzying, and Spock dug his fingers into Kirk's shoulders to steady himself.

"Steady, sweetheart, I gotta use those in the morning," Kirk chuckled breathlessly, sliding his hands back around to start fumbling with Spock's belt. He laughed, sounding almost giddy with it, when Spock peeled up the red shirt and Kirk paused only long enough to discard it before pressing back in, hands clutching tight into Spock's hair and kissing him as though it were the last time.

They – stumbled, for lack of a more appropriate term, into Kirk's sleeping alcove, and Spock's tunic and undershirt were stripped in a matter of seconds, his belt following as Kirk pushed him down onto the bunk, following to pin him down with weight and heat and deep, hungry kisses. His spine flexed and rippled under Spock's fingers, and a low groan creaked out of his lungs as Spock deftly unlatched his belt and dropped it to the floor.

It was only when Kirk's fingers pressed down under the waist of his uniform slacks and began to push them – and his boxers – down that the stutter of anxiety began to make itself known, bouncing off the heavy buzz of lust – _Kirk's _lust, and his own, vibrating together like a swarm...

"C'mon, sweetheart, you're okay..." Kirk mumbled into his mouth, and he took a sharp breath, trying to force the anxiety away. "Hyperventilate and I'll smack you one."

He had not ceased his movements, and pulled away to strip the pants the rest of the way before skilfully and hastily divesting himself of his own, and then he was back – hot and heavy and entirely naked, miles of skin burning into Spock's, and a wave of lust roaring into his system...

"Okay?" Kirk paused, and Spock clutched at his shoulders again. He was leaving bruises and he knew it, and he breathed deepily around the buzzing. "Spock?"

"Jim..."

"You okay?" Kirk did not lift himself away, but he propped himself up on one arm, the other stroking over Spock's chest, fingers curling in the hair and tugging lightly, as though trying for a distraction.

Spock tangled his fingers in that fair hair, and pulled him down for a kiss, wrapping his mind around what _else _he could feel there – affection, and concern, and care, and _love_, whispering themselves through the seams of his mouth, almost drowned out by the lust but still there, still noticeable, if only he would keep _kissing_...

He _said_ nothing, but Kirk seemed to get the idea, digging heavy kisses without pause into his mouth and lips, breathing heavily through his nose even as he shifted up and one questing hand began to trail south.

He was only semi-erect, but even the light, skittering brush of Kirk's fingers drew him the rest of the way into full arousal, his hips rocking on reflex and earning a smile from Kirk through their kissing. A moment later, that rough hand, damp with sweat, wrapped itself around him and began to tug in short, sharp, expert pulls.

"Oh God, fucking love you like this," Kirk moaned, and Spock swallowed whatever it was he intended to say, keeping him locked into the distracting kissing even as Kirk began to thrust lightly and the roar grew into a supernova. "F'ckin'..._ungh_..."

His hand vanished, and then he was thrusting in earnest, pressing every inch of skin possible into Spock's and letting friction do his job for him, the motion of his hips creating a copy-rhythm to their kissing and even _breathing_ – the world was _shaking_, shaking with _them_, rattling and jarring because _Kirk desired it, and the world did as..._

He felt it, the ripple that shot up Kirk's spine, and Kirk dragged his head away to groan to the ceiling, arching his entire body like a cat. The increased pressure and the sudden white-hot flash of orgasm that punctured the roar like a balloon slammed themselves against Spock's mind, and he came clutching at Kirk's back and shoulders like a drowning man to a raft, gasping out his orgasm into the damp, Human skin at his disposal...

"I got you. I got you, sweetheart. God, you're so fucking beautiful, and I got you..."

He came back to himself, a second or four lost, his chest still heaving and the soft purring rumble of sexual satisfaction leaking from Kirk's mind and into his own. Kirk shifted, and a moment later, rubbed his discarded tunic between them before tossing it aside and settling back like a living blanket, nuzzling at Spock's cheek and pressing light, fleeting kisses around the left side of his jaw.

"God, I love you," he breathed. "I fucking love you."

Spock nudged his face into the attention, gathering back his scattered mind, and finally managed to fold an arm up to tuck the fingers into the crook of Kirk's elbow and rub unseen kisses into the crease of skin there.

"Mine," Kirk whispered, kissing the pulse point in his neck softly. "That's you. Mine."

"Jim," Spock murmured as his thought processes began to actually resemble processes as opposed to scattered observations without connections. "Jim...earlier today, Lieutenant-Commander Freel..."

"No shop talk, I'm too blissed," Kirk grumbled, lips still brushing the skin of his neck.

"He had what...appeared to be a bite mark, and I meant to ask what it could be."

"A hickey," Kirk said blankly, then his mind seemed to catch up. "You...you know what a hickey is."

"I do not."

Kirk shifted, unburrowing himself and propping himself up over Spock to stare. "You what? Seriously? All this time and I've never given you a hickey?"

"That is...a bite?"

"Yeah," Kirk looked floored, and Spock could not work out why. "I've _never_...?"

"Why would you?"

"Um, because it feels a-fucking-mazing?" Kirk demanded, then a predatory look stole across his face, and a moment later, he had his face pressed into Spock's neck and was licking small, wet kisses from throat to clavicle – and then he clamped his teeth around the vein at the lowest part of the neck, and _pressed_.

The compression of the vein was shocking in its precision, and the shot of mixed pain and heady pleasure shot to Spock's skull, bounced off and headed back down to his groin seamlessly. It was _dizzying_, as though he were being deprived of oxygen and achieving a shocking, cresting high...

Kirk laughed suddenly, a hand ghosting over his crotch again and the renewed interest there. "Oh wow. You _like _that."

"I...I..."

"I wonder," Kirk said, faux-casually, "what happens if..." his fingers trailed over the thin skin at Spock's wrist, hiding his radial artery from the world, "I bite _here_..."

He did – and the bliss took over.

* * *

><p>The <em>Sophia Ana <em>came off its shore leave rotation exactly one week after their arrival, and during that week, Spock had made himself distinctly unpopular with his staff. He had reformed almost all of the experiments, and forcibly locked down the labs until the required paperwork had been filed. But at least the labs were beginning to run somewhat according to standard.

Kirk had been likewise busy with communications – or so Spock assumed, having barely seen him since their arrival, although he often woke to evidence (namely, abandoned shirts, toiletries in the bathroom, and the faint smell of shaving cream) that Kirk had encroached on his living space in the night. He saw Kirk mostly in passing, sweeping through the halls with armfuls of padds and usually snapping at some poor yeoman over his shoulder as he went, not even pausing long enough to flash Spock that ridiculous smile.

The rate of improvement in his telepathic centres slowed to a dull crawl – but they were busy, justifiably so, and Spock did not mention it.

As unpopular as Spock undoubtedly was amongst his staff, and as unpopular as Kirk probably was amongst his own, Spock entered the first command meeting of their contract to find Kirk amiably charming both the Chief Engineer and the Chief of Security, talking with his hands about some amusing incident or other whilst waiting for the captain's arrival, and Spock noted once more, with an odd sense of pleasure, Kirk's ability to adapt to any situation in which he found himself.

He had not, however, entertained the idea that Kirk might have spoken about him, and so was surprised when the engineer glanced at him with an appraising eye and said, "So you're th' famous Commander Spock?"

Or, at least, that was what he probably said. His accent was...thick.

"I am."

Kirk looked...somewhere between amused and proud. Perhaps _smug _was the best term.

"Aye, the lad here's been bending my ear about y'!" the man blustered, although he could only have been ten years Kirk's senior. "Takin' over th' science labs, I'm told."

"That is correct," Spock responded flatly. The engineer either didn't notice or didn't care, but the Chief of Security narrowed his eyes.

"Good luck to ye," the engineer scoffed. "Barreis was a cunt, if ye'll pardon me French. Couldnae a-run a heating coil unit."

"Commander Barries is no longer in command," Spock returned evenly. "If the current science staff wish to retain clean career records, then they will learn – rapidly – to conform to the regulations set by the Fleet."

"And by you," the Chief of Security grunted.

"Naturally."

Judging by Kirk's sudden tension, Spock was not incorrect in his own assessment of the Chief of Security: he seemed to be somewhat hostile.

"You Romulan?" he grunted.

"Vulcan," Spock returned, used to the question. Perhaps not so much from other officers, but then, the _Sophia Ana _had not left the Karovios system for five years now, and there were no Vulcans _or _Romulans in the vicinity.

He grunted again. "Not many Vulcans around these days."

At which point the captain stepped into the room, oblivious to the ice that had formed on every surface. Metaphorically, at least.

"At ease, gentleman," he said when they half-rose. "I've no heart for pomp and circumstance now."

Captain Johnson did not strike Spock as having the heart for much. He was as bland as his name – a squat, fleshy-faced man with a receding hairline of wispy grey strands, and a gut straining to escape the confines of his faded gold tunic. He was non-descript, with a mild manner in the creases of his eyes and mouth, and a timid set to his jaw. He settled tiredly, the creak of his bones almost audible, and rubbed a hand across his eyes before straightening up.

"Right," he said. "Back to the hellhole that is Karov II, eh?"

Nobody moved.

"Everyone's back," he grunted around a yawn. "Meet your new First Officer, Commander Kirk," he added almost absently, waving a hand at Kirk. "He's taking over from the incompetent waste of whinging space that was Commander Barreis, and considering he's an American, do try not to slap him for his accent."

Kirk's eyebrows crawled towards his hairline, and Spock wondered idly whether he had picked up the habit from himself.

"Kirk is also serving as our communications officer, seeing as Lieutenant Morris quit last month, and we don't really need one anyway," Johnson mumbled. "And this is Commander Spock, who will be taking over the labs. Good luck to you, Commander."

"Aye, ye'll need it," the engineer said, and chuckled.

"Anything to report, anyone?"

There was a general silence, though Kirk's frown was getting steadily deeper and deeper.

"Alright, back to work," Johnson said, rolling his mountains of shoulders before heaving his bulk back out of the chair. "No use wasting more time than is necessary. Commander K'Ralis, a word?"

A tall Tessian unfolded...itself...from one of the chairs furthest from any other crewmember and glided gracefully out after Johnson. A moment later, the Chief of Security grunted again and left, the Quartermaster General (a weedy little man by the unlikely name of Hillary) and the Chief Medical Officer drifting out in his wake, and leaving Spock alone in the room with the strongly-accented engineer and Kirk.

"Okay, seriously," Kirk said into the silence. "Is everything here always this...haphazard."

"Aye," the engineer said. "Cap'n Johnson runs a loose ship. Where've the two of ye come from?"

"The _USS Enterprise_, serving under Captain Pike," Spock returned.

"The _Enterprise_?" the engineer's face broke into a leery grin. "Ye don't say? Ach, I'd love to serve on the flagship, me. I'd like to get my hands on her ample nacelles, if you'll pardon the engineerin' parlance," he added, nudging Kirk in the ribs and earning himself a snort of amusement. "Ach, me granny'd have me hide – I'm Scotty," he said, unexpectly flashing Spock the _ta'al _instead of attempting to reach over and shake his hand. "I run the engineerin' department, laddie, and if ye want to run any o' those damned experiments o' yours in _my _bay, then ye'd better get those nerks of staff o' yers up to scratch!"

"Of course, Mr. Scott," Spock returned evenly. "And perhaps in return, you could keep your own 'nerks of staff' out of my laboratories?"

Scotty _beamed_, and the crush of stressed loneliness began to ebb.

* * *

><p>And so a routine began – after a long day of, as Kirk termed it, 'beating these wasters into shape', Spock would often find himself dragged away from the labs by Kirk to join him and Mr. Scott in the mess. Mr. Scott's company was welcome – easy and amiable, he did not cause Spock to second-guess his own responses, or feel unsure of his footing as he so often did around Humans, and though Mr. Scott must have noticed the way that Kirk looked at him, he said nothing of it.<p>

His friendliness was welcome – the doctor assigned to him under his service proviso was so professional as to be distant, and Spock found himself oddly missing the sarcasm and snark of Dr. McCoy. The science staff kept their own distance, wary of his reprimands and disgruntled with his adherence to the rules that they had blissfully ignored. And the security staff eyed him with some odd hostility that he did not understand.

There was, however, one disadvantage to Mr. Scott's company.

Spending any time in the engineering bay with him – which was common enough for any scientist specialising in physics – inevitably meant that Ensign Goodman, of the fair hair and apparent crush, was somewhere in the vicinity. At first, Spock did not notice much of her, but as the weeks progressed, she came to dropping padds and equipment at the mere sight of him, blushing furiously whenever he so much as glanced in her direction, and on the one occasion when he retrieved her dropped padd for her, she had gone an alarming shade of purple that had had Spock seriously considering calling for a medic.

Needless to say, both Kirk and Mr. Scott found the entire debacle to be utterly hilarious.

"She's flirting with you," Kirk said, when Spock enquired. "Badly, but she is."

"Why would clumsiness be a flirtation technique?"

Kirk rolled his eyes. "She's trying to get you to look up her skirt."

"I...see."

Kirk snickered. "Tried and true, Spock. Believe me, if I wore a skirt, I would have been dropping things left, right and centre for you too."

"In the past tense?"

Kirk grinned; Spock was getting better at reading his facial expressions without the aid of telepathy, and that particular smile was one of cocky satisfaction. "I think I'm a bit beyond dropping a stylus to get your attention," he snarked, flashing a hand out to catch the underside of Spock's fingers before dropping back into parade rest. They had been in the turbolift at the time, and Spock would later reflect that it was perhaps no coincidence that their meal had been cut short in favour of more amorous activities in Kirk's quarters.

Ensigns and their flirting aside, they..._settled_, although perhaps not comfortably or happily, into a new routine. They were both busier than they had ever been on the _Enterprise_, purely because of the sheer incompetence of at least seventy-five percent of the staff aboard the _Sophia Ana_, and adjusting to not sharing a living space with Kirk was harder than it should have been, and sometimes – just sometimes – that aching well of _loneliness _would rise up if Kirk were gone too long, and Spock would have to stop and gather himself again.

But they settled.

Except for...

The closure of his mind was an alien sensation to Spock. He had never been able to understand how Humans could stay sane, locked inside their own heads for their entire lives. He was not prone to melding or communicating telepathically, even when he could, but to reach out in meditation or in times of need and simply _feel _the humming connections to his family had always been a soothing, familiar touchstone in his life.

To be locked away inside his own head, unable to reach out and feel _anything_, was...

It was frightening. It was almost claustrophobic, in a sense – he felt the urge, sometimes, to lash out with everything he had, to force his way out of his own head and damn the insanity into which he would spiral if he tried. He felt trapped and alone, even when he could feel Kirk's emotions sliding over his skin, because he could – he could only _hear _them, and not _listen_.

Sometimes, he would reach without thinking, when faced with a challenge or an especially irritating crewmember or another lonely hour without a friendly face, and when his mind brushed the empty clutch of broken stems where the bonds had resided in his head, he would feel – only for a moment, but still a moment too long – as though he had survived when he should not.

To be trapped, to be sealed away and have his mind locked down as soundly as a dead man in a tomb, was no life.

The vague sense of _reaching_, when Kirk had kissed him their first night aboard, had granted a spark of illogical hope, however, that perhaps he was merely locked in, and the door had not been entirely sealed over from the outside. For six weeks, he nurtured that feeling, and tried to push forward against his own body when Kirk touched him, and if Kirk noticed, he said nothing.

Until he did.

"Meld with me," he said, out of the blue one evening in Spock's quarters, over a private meal and idle chatter about his attempts at mending fences with Dr. McCoy. Kirk was still angry with him over the hearing, despite Spock's attempts at diplomacy, but a separation approaching four months was wearing him down.

"Meld with you?"

"Yeah," Kirk said, reaching over the table and squeezing his fingers. "You know, that whole _my mind to your mind _thing Vulcans like to do on unsuspecting psi-null species? The thing you used to do and _bask _in every morning? And don't give me excuses, I _know _I woke up a few times with you listening in upstairs."

Spock ignored the teasing accusation. "Jim, I am...I am not..."

"You said when we first came aboard you tried reaching for me," Kirk pointed out. "And at your last check-up, Dr. Puri did say your telepathic centres were getting more active."

"Increasing activity is not..." Spock broke off, and tried again. "Jim, I am not sure."

"Shouldn't we at least give it a try?" Kirk coaxed, rubbing his fingertips over the back of Spock's knuckles, smearing kisses into the bone. "We're never going to know if we don't try."

"This is not a sexual position, Jim, this could...if I were to lose control, I could very easily kill you," Spock pushed.

"No you _won't_," Kirk said. "Spock, I..."

He hesitated, and something stole across his features that Spock could not quite identify.

"Jim?"

"Look," his other hand came up to curl around the one he held captive. "I just...I know I _shouldn't_, but I feel...I feel a little like you don't _want _to meld with me."

Spock blinked. "_What_?"

"I feel...I feel a bit like...you said yourself that your mind – your telepathy – tried to reach out for me, and sometimes...sometimes when I touch you I can _feel _you, like that buzzing like your brain's kicking off under there, but...you don't even attempt to read me, you don't try melding, and you don't want it brought up," Kirk shrugged, biting his lip and looking rather as though Spock had kicked his puppy. Out of an airlock. And then broken his heart for good measure.

"_Jim_..." Spock felt suddenly...vaguely nauseous.

"I just feel a bit like...like maybe you just don't _want_ to, and...I wouldn't make you, and I know it's stupid and shit, and I know it's not like you're having second thoughts, but..." Kirk floundered a little. "Can't we just _try_?" he finished, his voice hitting a pitch of pleading that twisted Spock's stomach unpleasantly.

He had not...he had simply not considered how that reluctance would have looked to Kirk, when he was recovering so well in every other arena. He had not let slip of his loneliness, or the occasional pause in thought, and so how would Kirk have known?

And in any case, Kirk was right. There would be no recovery without eventually trying to meld again for the first time, and if he was already beginning to reach for him mentally, then there was little logical reason to put it off further.

He took a deep breath, and nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: The novelist that Spock remembers is Louis de Bernieres - specifically from _Captain Corelli's Mandolin_. This is also the last of this twoshot, but the series is still ongoing, so watch out for more in 2012! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!**

* * *

><p>The moment he agreed, Kirk <em>beamed<em>.

Kirk's smile almost drowned out the apprehension - every stress line since their transfer eased under the brilliance of that smile, and there was a distinct hum of warm emotion that bubbled under his skin momentarily, before his hands turned to grasp at both of Spock's and pulled him up.

"How do you want to do this?" he murmured, his voice dropping to match the soothing rub of his thumbs. "Do you want to - I don't know. Lie down? Sit down?"

"Sitting down would be best," Spock responded. His heartbeat felt too rapid. "Jim...Jim, if this does not work..."

"Then it's okay," Kirk interrupted. "We can try again. We didn't just jump back into having sex, did we?"

That...did not help. It was quite illogical - mind melds and sexual intercourse were hardly comparable - but quite suddenly, all Spock could recall was the panic at their first failed attempts.

His heart rate was still rising.

"C'mon," Kirk was pushing him to sit on the bed, liberally rearranging the pillows until Spock found himself propped up against the wall, cross-legged and as relaxed as possible under the circumstances. They had never really...posed for it; they had always...fallen into melds, perhaps, and the sudden gravitas of this position jarred Spock's already raw nerves.

"Jim..."

"It's alright," Kirk folded up, cross-legged also, opposite him and raised his hand to kiss the back of the knuckles. "Relax, sweetheart. It's alright. No matter what, it'll be fine."

That was universally _not true _when it came to telepathy, and Spock took a deep breath through his nose, closing his eyes against Kirk's misplaced - _he does not understand _- certainty.

But then...

But then they _had _melded before. They had connected before. His mind was not unfamiliar to Spock; he could remember the light of it, the stream of consciousness that hiccuped and mumbled in the folds of his brain, the warmth and the - confidence with which he loved, that now had been shaken by Spock's refusal to try...

He had never refused to try something before. It was unVulcan; it was inHuman - _it was not himself_.

"Come on, sweetheart," Kirk murmured encouragingly, pressing his hand clumsily to the side of Kirk's jaw. "Come in."

His fingers found their positions. "My mind to your mind," he murmured, the words rolling off his tongue in Vulcan, not Standard, and he found himself only vaguely aware of it as his barriers shivered under the weight of the ritual. "My thoughts to your thoughts."

The first crack in the wall glimmered, and then Kirk was _there_, bleeding into him like water through sand, sinking into everything. The crystals were...dulled, smudged over with some kind of ash, smeary and unclear. They were _sharp_, like they had not been before, and the longer they crowded into his senses, the brighter they became. It was...it was blinding, drowning out his other senses until Kirk _surrounded _him, smothering him with this overwhelming light -

And then the scream.

The scream - a scream of words, Standard or Vulcan, he couldn't tell - but an outpouring of stops and pauses, of garbled vowels and clattering consonants that hammered at the walls - but there were no walls, and it poured out, water from the broken jug, and his mind was following it, flooding his hands and skin and clothes, bleeding, he was bleeding bleeding bleeding bleed-

Breathe.

He was breathing. His ribs moved; he controlled them, forcing down the drumming of his heart, bringing his body under control, and drawing himself inwards, drawing back, cutting out the world. He forced up the walls again, forcing some separations, gathering the blood back in - it would not come, he would lose it, lose himself into the room...

"No, no, no..."

Someone was speaking.

"No, come on, come on sweetheart, don't shut down on me..."

Someone was - there was warmth, and a voice, and he rose his breathing to match the ribs beneath his jaw - he was here, home - _Kirk_.

He had slipped sideways, wrapped in Kirk's tight grip, head cushioned by a shoulder and tucked under Kirk's jaw, the urgent calls drifting away somewhere above him. Kirk was rocking him again, arms tight around his shoulders, one hand stroking - rubbing, perhaps - along his spine. Even as Spock collected the last messy outpourings of thought together and sealed up the cracks, Kirk ducked his chin to kiss the crown of Spock's head and whisper into his scalp, voice picking up speed.

"Come on, sweetheart, please, come on..."

"Jim," Spock cracked out - his voice felt too loud for his body, and he crushed the feeling of fleeting disconnection.

"Jesus," Kirk breathed, his rapid pulse beginning to slow. "What...what was...I'm sorry," he blurted out suddenly, squeezing tight again. "I'm sorry. I didn't...I didn't think that...I thought it would be okay."

Spock said nothing - what was there to say? He shifted, unfolding stiff legs and pushing up from Kirk's hold, having to brace his hands briefly against Kirk's waist to peel them apart. Kirk went reluctantly, hands grasping at his head, neck and shoulders, before finally allowing the separation.

"Spock?" Kirk whispered. "Sweetheart?"

"I...I need to..." Spock closed his eyes again, gathering himself. He felt...shaky. His mind was _churning_. Stomachs churned; minds should not. "I need to meditate."

Kirk swallowed. He looked...Spock did not want to categorise the expression.

"Okay," he whispered, dropping his gaze. "Okay."

* * *

><p>Meditation was...difficult.<p>

The failed meld was jarring. He had not failed in an attempted meld since the age of one Vulcan year, and further, he had never entertained the idea of failing with Kirk. Kirk had no barriers through which to push; his mind, like that of any other Human, spilled into his surroundings in a tumble of chaos. The hardest part of melding was not present.

And yet he had failed.

He had failed to create that connection again; worse, he had touched the mind of the man that loved him - more, the man that had literally kept him alive after the tragedy - and been burned. It had been too brilliant; it had _hurt_, and he had been unable to hear him. _He had not been able to understand him_.

He could have hurt Kirk. He had _panicked_ - like a silly child - and if he had lashed out, or thrown up a shield in the middle of the meld, he could have broken Kirk's mind, or killed the both of them. He could have been responsible for the destruction - for the insanity or death - of _Kirk_.

Worse, even than that, was that beyond the haze of confusion and shame, Spock knew what Kirk had perceived. Kirk would take his withdrawal as a rejection - he would be experiencing guilt, and in the meld...

The one thing that he _had _been able to garner in the meld were those dark smears over the ever-present crystals.

Doubt.

Kirk had begun to doubt his place in Spock's life - and so Spock had failed not once, but twice.

It took some hours to calm the fractured upsets along his thought processes, and rebuild the shielding that had kept him from losing his sanity during his recovery, and then some time longer to at least calm the emotional response - the shame and self-anger and the sharp stench of _failure _creeping into the edges of his psyche.

Somewhere in the early morning, he abandoned the attempt, having done the best he could in the immediate aftermath, and opened his eyes.

To be met with Kirk, dozing on his bed, turned on his side to face the meditation mat.

He had not returned to his own quarters, as Spock had suspected. In fact, he had stripped down to his underwear and donned the sweatpants that he kept permanently in Spock's rooms, as though he intended to stay the night.

Spock did not move for several moments, merely...observing. Kirk's face was tight with stress and unhappiness, and his eyebrows twitched downwards repeatedly in brief frowns. His breathing was too shallow for true sleep, and Spock knew that a whisper of noise or movement would wake him instantly.

He had stayed.

Spock had not changed from his uniform, and drew off the tunic before rising. The moment that he approached the bed, Kirk shifted and blinked bleary blue eyes up at him, momentarily sleep-dazed out of recognition, before his expression cleared and he half-sat, hands twitching as though he wanted to reach out but was unsure.

The uncertainty _hurt_.

"How'd it go?" Kirk whispered, edging over hesitantly when Spock sat on the edge of the mattress.

"It..." Spock paused, selecting the words. "I have calmed the...disturbance. Somewhat."

"Somewhat?"

"Not entirely."

"Spock..."

"Jim. It is 0100 hours. We must sleep."

"I...yeah. Yeah, we should," Kirk muttered, still looking tight and tense. When Spock shifted to lie down, he seemed to once again take the initiative and curled himself around him, hesitantly sliding his arms back around Spock's shoulders but lying stiff beside him.

"Jim..."

"I'm so sorry," Kirk whispered earnestly. "I really am. I'm so sorry."

"I know," Spock murmured, closing his eyes. After a moment, he folded one arm up to grasp at Kirk's bicep across his chest. "You are not to blame."

Kirk made a strangled sort of noise, and squirmed closer. "I pushed you into it. You didn't want to do it, and I pushed, and then you..." his voice cracked.

"I panicked," Spock suddenly whispered, face burning with the shame of it. "I have been closed off for so long that the...the experience of another mind in contact with my own...it was...a shock."

Kirk pressed a kiss to the top of his bare shoulder, and Spock turned his head to look at him.

"I should not have panicked," he breathed.

"It was understandable," Kirk corrected. "You were nervous. I could...I could see that. I shouldn't have pushed."

"But you were correct. If I do not try..."

"You can try again when it's not going to do that," Kirk said. "Until then...well, fuck it. I stand corrected. I..."

"You no longer know your importance."

"What?"

"You," Spock swallowed. "You no longer feel certain about my regard for you."

"I..." Kirk paused, then finally eliminated any remaining space, sinking around Spock's side like a warm trap. "I just...it's so stupid, it's just a stupid Human thing - we need to hear things sometimes, and I always...I know how special melding is. I know...I know what that _means_, that you meld with _me_, and it just felt like...like you didn't want to anymore, and I...I listened to that and not you saying you weren't ready. And I don't fucking care. I _do _know you love me, I _do_."

"And yet you felt uncertain."

"Because I'm fucking stupid," Kirk said bitterly. "I didn't _think_. I've...I've been stressed and irritable and I let it get in the way of you and me and _nothing _should get in the way of you and me. I'm just a fucking stupid, ego-centric, selfish son of a..."

"And I love you."

He interrupted without being aware of it; he spoke without meaning to, and yet meant all of the words without exception.

Kirk paused, before pressing in to kiss him briefly - lips clasping dryly, barely touching - and settle there, breathing shallowly against his face.

"I know," he whispered. "I know."

* * *

><p>"Spock. <em>Spock<em>. Spock, wake up. _Now_!"

It was the bark of a command, rather than the persistence of the voice or the hand shaking his shoulder, that roused Spock from sleep. He felt groggy, and his time sense dutifully informed him of it - 0623.

Then his training kicked in - shockingly delayed - and he rocked upright before the next slap could strike home. His cheek throbbed; Kirk's hand was raised, flat and palm exposed, and his face - his expression was caught somewhere unidentifiable between outraged anger and ferocious intensity.

"Get dressed," he barked, his tone unlike anything Spock had ever heard. "_Spock_. Get fucking dressed - _now_. We're going to Sickbay."

"Jim?" Spock rose obediently from the bed, but stood dumbly until Kirk made an affronted noise and flung himself towards the closet space. "Jim, what is the emergency?"

"_You_," Kirk snarled, thrusting an undershirt and a pair of black slacks into his arms. "Put these on. _Now_."

"I am not unwell."

"To hell you're not," Kirk snapped, putting on his own clothes with unreasonable force. "Shoes, or barefoot. I don't care. Pick one."

His agitation was palpable in the air, and Spock barely had his feet into his boots before Kirk's hand was under his elbow in a fierce grip and he was being swept from his own quarters like a criminal under arrest. And while he was stronger than Kirk, he was perhaps too surprised at being handled in such a manner - in such a _professional _manner, as Kirk's professionalism generally revolved around keeping his hands _away_ from Spock - to put up a struggle, and allowed himself to be swept along.

"Jim," he unwound the hand when they reached the turbolift, though he was pushed into it regardless. "What is going on?"

"You were shaking," Jim said shortly.

"Shaking?"

"_Yes_. I woke up and you were fucking shaking in your sleep. Just like..." Kirk swallowed, and Spock noted the tight, anxious tension in the folds of his eyes. "It was like then. When you were...sick."

Sick. An inadequate, and inaccurate way of putting it. One that he had permitted to persist for too long. He was not sick. He was not _ill_ - this was no malady, no _disease_. No examination would provide some virus to be cured, or some alien bacterium to be studied and obliterated. He was not _sick_, he was...

"I am grieving, not ill."

Kirk blinked at him. "Does it matter? You were _shaking_. You haven't shaken in _months_, and then you kick-start again right after melding. Trying to meld, whatever," he added hastily when Spock opened his mouth. "Just," the turbolift doors opened again, and that hand was back under his elbow, "I'm not a doctor, but I'm not an idiot. That _can't _be a good sign."

Spock subsided. That...was not a good sign, he was forced to agree, but...

The vague grogginess that still tugged at his thoughts and movements aside, he did not feel...unsettled the way that he used to upon waking. He did not feel unduly distressed, nor the instinct to keep Kirk within arm's reach. Perhaps he did not feel _well_, but...

The thought was swept away when the doors to the medical bay opened, and a startled Dr. Puri glanced up with dark-ringed eyes from a pile of padds on his desk. Dr. Puri did not keep a separate office as Dr. McCoy had done, but his desk loomed over the east wall of the bay, piled higher than the man himself. He drew himself up, however, with all the authority of a blustering man used to shouting and gesticulating to enforce his will, and Spock wondered as he scurried over to them whether it was something taught in Human medical establishments.

"What happened?" Puri shrilled - a thin, reedy voice that brought a light touch of amusement through the hand at Spock's elbow.

"He was shaking in his sleep," Kirk said, nodding at Spock. "He hasn't done that in months, and we tried to meld last night, so..."

He did not get any further before Puri squeaked, "Biobed!" and reached for a tricorder. "Commander Kirk, step outside."

Kirk bristled. "No."

"Step _outside_, Commander, or I will make that an order and have the orderlies remove you."

"I'm not going."

"Commander, believe you me," Puri warned, not glancing up once from the whirring machinery, "you do not wish to pick your battles in here. My orderlies are used to dealing with outraged Thenaxians, thank you very much, and puffed-up little jumpstarts of Humans are of no concern. Step. _Outside_."

"Look," Kirk snapped, "he is my _partner_, and..."

"And," Puri finally looked up, and seemed to attempt to glare Kirk into submission, "I do not care. You may be his partner, _Commander_, but you are not his husband, and therefore not only do I not have the obligation to share the facts with you when he is indisposed, but as he is conscious and apparently perfectly capable of understanding and obeying my orders, I have absolutely no _motivation _to share the facts with you. Step outside, _Mr. _Kirk, or I will have you removed."

Kirk was as red as his shirt, and a tic had gone off in his jaw - and Spock, seeing the explosion that was imminent, spoke up.

"Jim. It is quite alright."

Kirk stared at him for a long minute, jaw working tightly, before he nodded and stalked back out into the corridor, every inch of him radiating tension.

Dr. McCoy would have undoubtedly made some acerbic comment, but Dr. Puri was a different man, and remained silent throughout the examination. He did not rely on McCoy's old-fashioned medicine, trusting the tricorder to tell him everything that he needed to know, and Spock was struck with the strange illogic of desiring that questioning when it would be utterly pointless. There was nothing that the doctor needed to hear from him; Kirk had said the facts as they knew them, and the rest...

Dr. Puri looked up. "Heightened activity in the telepathic centres, but nothing I would worry about. Come back in forty-eight hours for another scan, and we'll go from there. No need to cause a fuss."

Spock did not much appreciate the implication that he had caused any such fuss, and slid down from the biobed quickly.

"I would suggest that you do attempt to meld, however," Dr. Puri said briskly, and Spock covered his surprise swiftly. "It will probably be uncomfortable for some time, but I would prefer to see an increase in telepathic activity rather than a stagnation. If your brain ceases to use its telepathy properly, then you will lose the ability."

He spoke lightly, as if of a broken arm, and clearly could not fathom how very terrifying - and in a way absurd - the idea of _being _non-telepathic was to Vulcans. How could one exist without it? How could one live - permanently - in that silent, yawning world with only oneself for company?

The shards had hurt, and suddenly all Spock wanted was to return to them.

"I understand," he said instead, nodding to Dr. Puri and turning away before the man could guess at what his thoughts had been. Dr. McCoy would have called some dry comment at his retreating back, but no such comment came, and he stepped back out into the silent corridor feeling slightly...

Bereft?

"Well?" Kirk was leaning against the opposite wall, arms folded and expression decidedly belligerent.

"There is no need for concern," Spock said evenly, and Kirk's shoulders eased, his hand drifting out to brush a swift kiss to the pads of Spock's fingers.

"You sure?" he pushed, ghosting another lingering kiss around his knuckles before visibly collecting himself and drawing back.

"Dr. Puri has suggested that I attempt to meld with you more often," Spock said evenly, not missing the emotions that began to play across Kirk's features. "He has expressed a preference that I attempt to...exercise my telepathy, as opposed to repressing it."

There was something unreadable in Kirk's face. "So...you want to try again?"

The memory of that panic knocked on Spock's reactions, and he took a breath.

"Perhaps not immediately."

Kirk cracked a smile, and spared enough of a glance to check for anyone else in the hall before leaning forward to grace him with a soft kiss.

"When you're ready," he murmured, and - from this new skill of reading body language, not skin - Spock knew that he meant it.

* * *

><p>Unpleasant surprises, it seemed, came in threes. After the disaster of the meld, and then Dr. Puri's dry assessment that such disturbance would be good for him, Spock supposed that, for once, it would have been prudent to give in to Human superstition, and expect the third surprise.<p>

As he was still prohibited by medical proviso to go on away missions, he rarely came into contact with the security staff, and so to look up near the end of that afternoon's shift to see the massive bulk of Security Chief Pendersen in his doorway. Upon being noticed, the officer made no greeting, but merely stepped forward enough to let the doors close behind him, and stopped again.

His...stillness was unsettling.

"Can I help you, Mr. Pendersen?" Spock asked warily. Vulcan instincts were generally even more ruthlessly suppressed than their emotions - notably, Vulcans did not _flinch_, for example - but there was a distinct rise in the amount of adrenalin in his system.

"You can transfer out."

Spock blinked. This was...not what he had expected. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Pendersen grunted, folding his arms and looking generally extremely belligerent. "We don't want your kind here."

"'My kind'?"

"Nobody wants to work with aliens who think they're better than everyone else, then come crying to the Fleet and get our good men _killed _when they can't handle their own battles," Pendersen sneered. "So ship out, or I'll drive you out."

Spock rose to his own feet as the tension levels began to rise in the room. "Is that a threat, Mr. Pendersen?"

"It's a promise. You get the hell off our ship, and fast. We don't want your kind around here."

Spock cocked his head. "And who is _we_, Mr. Pendersen?"

For all his brawn, the man had at least enough brains not to name names, and he merely grunted, squaring his shoulders. Spock vaguely wondered if he would be stupid enough to attempt to strike him, and dismissed it. If he was so clearly xenophobic and had not yet been picked up by Internal Affairs or the Interspecies Ethics Committee, then he probably was not stupid enough to try something as obvious as hit him.

"Until you get your transfer papers, don't try any surface missions," Pendersen growled.

"Mr. Pen-"

"Spock, I need the - ah," Kirk broke himself off, one foot inside the office, and Spock noticed the moment that _Kirk _noticed the tension in the room. He stiffened, eyes darting between the two officers before him in silent judgement, before: "Am I interrupting?"

"No, Commander," Spock said smoothly, maintaining steady eye contact with the bristling lieutenant.

"...Good," Kirk said slowly. "I need the latest personnel numbers - Lieutenant, could you finish this discussion another time?"

"Yes, sir," Pendersen said flatly, glowering at Spock, before adding: "Keep my recommendations in mind, _Spock_."

Kirk's eyes narrowed.

"I shall," Spock returned smoothly. "Dismissed, Lieutenant."

The doors had barely closed behind Pendersen before Kirk dropped his padd on the desk and folded his own arms, mimicking Pendersen's angry stance. "Alright, spill. What was that about?"

Spock eyed the closed door, and Kirk's expression, and carefully said, "The lieutenant wished to express a personal dislike."

"Of you?"

"Indeed."

Kirk was openly scowling. Spock knew what he was doing, but technically there was no regulation stating that everyone had to pretend to like one another.

"You're not being frank with me."

"Because it is not important, and you will only derive further stress from it," Spock said flatly. It was hardly the first idle threat he'd received based on his species. He was faintly surprised that his hybrid status had not been brought into play, but then it was entirely possible that Lieutenant Pendersen did not _know _about that.

Kirk's frown deepened.

"Jim. I assure you, it is nothing." After all, for all Kirk's posturing and blustering, Spock was by no means helpless. Human 'jarheads', as McCoy referred to them, were hardly difficult to handle.

"...Alright," Kirk held up his hands in submission, shaking his head. "Can't say I like it, but alright. Just...promise you'll tell me if it does get out of hand?"

"Yes, Jim."

"Okay," he leaned across the desk for a brief kiss before straightening up and retrieving the padd. "Anyway. I need your personnel numbers - we're starting the evaluations and obviously you have the largest department, so I was thinking..."

Spock did not miss the fact, however, that Kirk remained until the end of shift - far longer than was necessary to discuss crew evaluations.

* * *

><p>Spock rose out of the layers of meditation, more settled than he had been in weeks, to find Kirk sitting cross-legged on the mat opposite him, hair ruffled from the shower in Spock's bathroom - and Spock was struck, quite by surprise, with a memory of a similar scene on the <em>Enterprise<em>, and Kirk announcing that he would not get a captaincy inside of ten years for their relationship, and that he wouldn't change that for the world.

"Hey," Kirk's smile was warm, and hovering in that odd territory between tense and relaxed, and Spock found himself leaning to kiss it away. "Mm. Feeling better?"

"Indeed."

"Good," Kirk squeezed his fingers and took a breath. "So. That meeting you had to pass up for the atmospheric simulations?"

Spock cocked his head. Kirk was transmitting an unusual amount of anxiety, and its shiver was vaguely unsettling.

"Captain Johnson's announced his retirement," Kirk blurted out. He took another breath, and the rest followed: "I'm going to apply for his post."

"You wish for the captaincy."

"Yeah," Kirk flashed a shaky smile. "It's not the _Enterprise_ - it's not _home_, but...it's _a_ captaincy."

Language was inadequate at the best of times; now, it failed completely, and Spock rose up on his knees to close the gap and kiss him again, kiss away the anxiety and that self-deprecating, shaky smile, and feel the surge of positivity from his action bouncing back at him from Kirk's mind. He could not yet reach it, but the wash of love was clear all the same.

They came together in a messy tangle of _life _on the deck in Spock's quarters, and if Kirk noticed how often Spock's fingers would skitter and linger over his psi points, he said nothing.

* * *

><p>Spock woke with a start when an Iowan summer breeze rippled through his hair, and took a moment to stare at the darkness of Kirk's cabin before realising that he was tightly entangled with him in the narrow bunk, and it was Kirk's dreams, nothing more, leaking across their skin. The breeze was soaked in warm affection and sleeping light, muted with Kirk's lack of consciousness, but present all the same, and Spock took a moment to really feel it before resettling back to his previous position, tucking his face into the crook of Kirk's neck.<p>

Kirk murmured something unidentifiable in his sleep, and the arm slung possessively over Spock's side tightened briefly.

Without a meld, Spock could not read the dream properly, and nor did he much care to. Vulcans did not dream; Human dreams were, judging by the very few he had witnessed, the height of ridiculous happenstance. People fell from cliffs, flew like birds, chattered to the dead and enjoyed sexual relations with hologrammatic supermodels without it ever apparently occurring to them that this was not possible or likely in any way.

But he could take some of it, much like Kirk's stronger emotions - the breeze stole through his hair even though it was, of course, imaginary or remembered at best, and there was the faint smell of rain in the room - but earthier and _heavy_, not like the rain in San Francisco at all. He could feel the idle contentment - that lazy beat of life that rolled through Kirk even in his wildest moments, as though underneath the youth and the hurricane lay the _man_. Underneath, a man waiting to be allowed to breathe - a man happy with his lot, satisfied with his future and his present and his history, and too thankful and too lucky to question the parts that had been patched up and glossed over.

The man that sometimes smiled at Spock in the evenings, alone together, and the man that kissed him when their fingers twisted together and stuck.

Kirk was young, and still loved with reckless passion. He loved with energy - he threw himself into love, and Spock stood permanently at the eye of the storm, admiring the beauty of something essentially destructive and following it inland until the passion itself died, and hoping that the eye would last long enough to allow him to land in the realm of that contented, secure man, who would be waiting - apparently in an Iowan summer breeze.

Spock had had a brief acquaintance with a young woman upon his immigration to Earth all those years ago, who had been employed in one of the campus coffee shops. She had taken him to some exhibition on the Human emotional range, and there he had seen a quote from a novel, daubed on a wall by an artist, and admired by the Humans that failed to understand a speech on their own species. He did not recall - he had not cared, he had to admit - his reaction at the time, or hers, but he remembered the quote, and now, years and an age later, he understood.

_'Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.'_

The novelist had, if Spock recalled correctly, described being in love as a temporary madness that would subside - _'and when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part'_ - and perhaps now, lying in a too-narrow bunk with the overheated body of a Human man from whom the idea of being parted was almost physically painful, Spock finally understood.

Kirk shifted again, murmured some nonsense, and emitted a loud snore - and Spock was not in love, but he _loved_.

* * *

><p>The peace that had settled in their disjointed world was disturbed only two days later, when Spock was jolted from over an hour of signing off on paperwork in his quarters by Kirk barrelling in, locking the doors behind him, toeing off his boots and throwing them unnecessarily hard at the bathroom door.<p>

"Jim, what...?"

"_Fuck_," Kirk snapped eloquently, before turning on his heel and starting to pace. "I've been passed up. They're bringing in Frazier from the _Archimedes _instead - apparently I'm too much of a fucking wild card - Johnson called me a fucking loose cannon, can you _believe _that, and then some of the..."

"Jim."

When he did not stop, Spock put down his stylus and rose, stepping into Kirk's path and waiting for him to walk right into his hands. He took him by the shoulders, arresting his restlessness, and squeezed until Kirk let out a heavy sigh and met his eyes.

"_What_?"

"Explain to me what has happened," Spock said calmly.

Kirk performed an odd, and annoyed, whole-body shrug. "They passed me up. For promotion."

Spock blinked. "The position..."

"...has been handed to Commander Frazier from the _Archimedes_," Kirk said bitterly. "Apparently I'm too young, too much of a loose cannon, too fucking _wild _and _unpredictable_...and it..." he twitched and sighed gustily.

"Jim?"

"It all came back to you," Kirk admitted, finally calming enough to slide his arms around Spock's shoulders and stare blankly at his chin. "Johnson kept banging on about my commitment to the ship and how a captain's duty trumps everything else - and he meant you. I know he did. It was about you and me, and it was just complete _bullshit_, and..."

"You did foresee such a problem."

"I...what?"

"When we accepted this transfer, you did express...minor concerns about your own career."

Kirk scowled. "You needed to come here. You were so sick - there was no way I was leaving you behind when you were like that."

"And now?" Spock prompted.

Kirk blinked, and the pause dragged for a second too long, before he shook his head again. "No. Not even now. You're not _better_, and...and anyway," he shrugged, suddenly offering a sheepish, almost shy smile. "I don't think I could leave you behind now anyway. I'd just miss you to death."

"You are stressed and unhappy here; your contract holds no such proviso..."

"No," Kirk took a deep breath. "No. I'm pissed at their reasoning, and yeah, you're right, this isn't exactly my favourite place in the quadrant, and I want to go _home_ - but it wouldn't be home if you weren't with me anyway."

He was calming, the buzzing in his skin beginning to die down again, and the tension in his shoulders eased when Spock slid his arms around the tight waist.

"But the moment that contract's over, we're outta here," Kirk cracked a wan smile. "They can take their bullshit excuses and totally not subtle xenophobia and shove it. And I'll run away and captain some other vessel and get this gorgeous scientist in my bed every night, because captains totally get bigger bunks."

Spock took the change of subject gratefully, skirting around Kirk's stress and puncturing it by sliding his hands lower and watching Kirk's pupils react. "We have been managing sufficiently with the standard bunk."

And then Kirk was kissing him - not with that fiery passion of the young Human man, but built around affection and amusement and _love_, the hum in his hair and skin closer to the light of love than the buzz of lust, almost singing with its pitch and vibration.

Spock barely noticed, caught up in the heady emotions radiating from Kirk's mind, as he was stripped down and poured onto the bed. He caught on nerves and psychic energy as Kirk's lips caught on skin and muscle, and he pushed his own love past the thin skin of Kirk's temple as the first slick finger pressed inside him. It had been so long that the feeling was like the first time - awkward, strange, an intrusion - and then it disappeared with the familiar murmurs and motions of Kirk's body - even the awkward fumble in the side drawer for the condom, and the familiar _"shit!" _of trying to open the packet with too-slick fingers. Kirk laughed when Spock wanted to, and then he was back amongst the burn and the stretch and the strange mix of discomfort and pleasure, tearing Spock up and rebuilding him in one motion and -

There was no hurricane, no wildness, no storm. The passion was muted, and the emotion pouring over Spock's skin was _love_ - the brilliant white light of _love_, and Kirk was almost invisible behind it.

"I love you," Kirk breathed into his mouth, breathing around exertion and sex and heat and temptation - and Spock did not have to hear it to know it.


End file.
